A Little Yarn On The Side

And I am getting stronger!  It doesn't always feel like it to me, because healing is such a slow process in general, but I'm exercising, gardening, crafting--all in the same day!  I'm still being careful and being very, VERY firm on not doing things like long car rides and too much sitting.  I'll probably never see a movie in a theater again because I don't like movies enough for the risk, but that's okay.  Besides, it's too hard to knit.  SPEAKING OF KNITTING: There has been some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'll wait a minute for you to recover from the shock.  Lately most of my crafting time has been taken up with sewing, which makes some sense as this year I'm trying to free up space in the sewing room and this shows progress faster than yarn.  Or it would if I were making something besides table runners.  I'm sure there were more time-consuming projects I could have picked for Christmas gifts, but I'm not sure that I didn't find...

At the beginning of the year, my craft goals were:   Finish 115 projects WITHOUT counting any lace embroidery ornaments unless they are the applique ones  Paint 2 ornaments Try a bargello quilting project Try a braided quilting project Try a stained glass quilting project Make a shoulder bag Make 3 colorwork ornaments Finish 3 ornaments from the ornament kits  Of which, I have so far only been working on #1.  Technically, the Spicy Spiral table runners are probably bargello, but I'm not going to count them because I want to motivate myself to try the one I had in mind in the first place.  I'm also not exactly making any real dent in the stash.  So far I've used up: Yards of fabric: 23.375 Yards of yarn:  4843.1 skeins of yarn: 26.615 BUT, with 50 projects completed, I am REALLY smoking that first goal!  Now, one might wonder why a (somewhat) sane person would make crafting goals or keep track of tallies or any of this....

 Sunday morning Andy and I went to the gym, and after that, gardening was out of the question.  So, I worked on a new table runner for some musical friends, and put together the snowflake blocks I'd worked on earlier: Really, I'm almost a bit tired of the winter/Christmas theme going on around here.  Almost........... I did have to try out another of the new free-standing lace ornaments.  It's so nice that I don't get obsessed or anything.......................

Having spent an hour in the pool followed by an hour or so of gardening,  I needed to take it easy today. So...... I finished Spicy Spiral runner #2!  And ironed the 4 remaining strata this evening with hope in my heart...........

Some time ago, I had cut out some blue microsuede that's been around since probably 2005,   and after the latest bunch of table runners, I thought I'd take a break and stitch up the outfit.  The pants are done except for the elastic in the waistband, but the top was a bit more problematic.  The interfacing on the neckline didn't work well with the fabric--so much so that I ended up tearing it in a couple places to make it work.  THEN, since it had worked with another top of the exact same pattern also in microsuede, I decided to use decorative stitching at the neck, hem, and sleeves.  And THIS is where I made it into an only-around-home shirt:  It worked perfectly on the test swatch.  Yes, I even did a practice run on this fabric, and it STILL managed to go badly.  It's even worse on the hem--all wavy and puckered--which it didn't do on the test piece, of course.  I think I might have enough of this fabric left to do a second shirt--I'...

It's April, the month is not over, and I have 49 finished projects!  I'm ahead!  I'm mature!  I'm planning ahead!  I could make my 115 projects goal easily!!! So, I have taken this feeling of hope and euphoria, and taken it to die where it does for every knitter: an Alice Starmore sweater.  Fingering weight yarn, size 2 needles, charts for every square inch or sweater, including underarm gussets.  Did I say sewing was slow?

Whew!  I'd like to say that we'd been off traveling or doing something exciting since the last time I posted, but the truth is far more boring.  I had to finish up our taxes, get a lot of work done in the greenhouse and in the beds, have been racking up some big walking mileage, then this weekend with two parties and dinner guests, I didn't even have enough time to rest & stretch my back, so yesterday I was exhausted.  I know--I need to be more vigilant in doing what is right for my back, and after an interesting episode this weekend of watching 2 60-year-olds with heart problems chug down a bottle of wine each while complaining about cardiologists, trust me--making good health decisions is our new driving force around here.  :) There has been some crafting: The remaining three table runners are finished, laundered, and in the gift bin, and I don't even want to discuss kimono ornaments for a while.  I am, however, probably all set for ornaments to gi...